Materialize

Craft Ontario is committed to fostering the next generation of professional craft practice, and this year’s exhibition is the third annual juried collection of emerging work that celebrates a diversity of creative, innovative and skilled incarnations of material culture. 2016 also marks Craft Ontario’s 40th anniversary, and as part of this celebratory year we are partnering with the Art Gallery of Burlington to host the exhibition in the Perry Gallery. Juried by Denis Longchamps and Janna Hiemstra, Craft Ontario is pleased to present the work of:

Incorporating wireframe forms and layers gives Alex Kinsley’s work a sense of depth and volume, which allows pieces to be viewed from various perspectives, and the bright, bold colours demand attention. Alex enjoys observing how people change when they wear his pieces: how they hold their bodies and how the observer is drawn in. He takes pleasure in the ambiguity – is it sculpture, is it jewellery, is it clothing?

Amanda Gresik’s work is based on her own experiences of the hospital environment to explore the tedious nature of being in a waiting room. She uses ‘Whitework’ which is a traditional type of embroidery that has been used to document and celebrate important events in people’s lives. With white linen fabric and cotton thread, she re-creates the waiting room environment, focusing on items one gathers while staring at the nearby clock.

Andrée Chénier draws inspiration from historical jewellery forms like memento mori, étuits, lockets and perfume rings, which were designed to store utilitarian or meaningful objects close to the body. With a passion to create jewellery that connects us to nature, Andrée focuses on a point of interest such as an unusual stone, the twist of a branch, a flower petal or a feather, and uses it to create a visual design while also containing it within the piece itself.

Anne-Sophie Vallée’s inquisitiveness into cultural traditions in South America led her to discover different ways of living, and to explore diverse approaches to value and aesthetics. She finds working with materials a way to reconcile wide open space and interior life, and she aims to create portable objects that act as a metaphor for place, where reality and a new sense of meaning converge.

In developing her work, Brittany MacDougall seeks to create dynamic relationships between each element, and enjoys creating visual interest by incorporating secondary mediums such as fabric, metal and colour. She is drawn to asymmetrical forms and the use of negative space, which she strategically uses to make each side of an object an engaging visual experience for the user.

Cassic Ho is a passionate designer and maker, and is a recent graduate of the Craft and Design Furniture program at Sheridan College. She has developed an increased awareness of the infinite possibilities available through combining digital and traditional modes of making. Multicultural experiences inspire her to visualize objects and express ideas in conceptual way, while always maintaining a respect for materials and quality craftsmanship.

Cheng-Ou Yu’s process begins with combining contemporary Western approaches to ceramics (trying to work towards innovation and originality) with the influence of Chinese traditions (a high level of respect for historical forms and using repetition and technique to reach the ideals of “quality” and “beauty”). He uses molds as a method of exploring and generating new forms, by interchanging various parts of the mold itself.

Emma Chorostecki is currently studying in the Bachelor program at Sheridan College, specializing in Furniture. In her work she attempts to design striking yet simple pieces, often playing with negative space. She enjoys designing and making objects that come from a playful capacity and that can be trusted to last, while also focusing on the environmental impact of her practice.

Karla Rivera’s work consists of functional and sculptural ceramics. She is interested in forms that make connections between elements of nature such as the wind, the shape of a mountain, or sand. Most of Karla’s work is made by throwing – this creates the first of many marks, after which she cuts and alters the forms, accumulating more marks, until multiple firings have the final say.

Kristian Spreen is interested in the interaction between abstract form and abstract imagery. Her handmade glass shapes are utilized as canvases for expressionistic drawings – there is no beginning or end to the imagery, and it can never be viewed all at once. Her work is meant to draw attention to the differences between our perception of 2-dimensional visual art and 3-dimensional sculpture.

With a great desire to learn and be creative within diverse fields, Joon Hee Kim’s pursuit of learning has included a unique combination of 2D and 3D knowledge that ultimately led her to study ceramics at Sheridan College. In her current graduate studies at the Chelsea College of Arts, she continues to explore work that reflects the persevering burden of human relationships, behaviors, and emotions.

Pasha Moezzi‘s jewellery creations are highly influenced by the world of architecture with clean lines, elegant curves and geometric shapes. His design process begins by subtracting from a larger shape and then introducing new shapes and forms only when absolutely necessary. He enjoys creating objects from scrap pieces of metal, and using unorthodox methods and tools, such as a table saw and band saw, to achieve his desired look.

Nurielle Stern creates sculptural ceramic objects and immersive installations that combine ceramics and video projection. Her work navigates the malleability of language and materials, the historic role of craftsman as storyteller, and the dialectics of inside and outside—the tamed and the wilderness. Her ceramic pieces are saturated with texture and vibrant glazes imbue them with a hyper-real quality.

Reid Ferguson is an emerging artist from Kitchener-Waterloo, and is studying at Sheridan College in the Craft and Design program. Working primarily in glass, he creates handcrafted objects with an urban industrial aesthetic. His current series of bowls with a concrete exterior and an opaque layer of glass on the interior feature magnified photographs of graffiti that reference specific locations from the streets of Kitchener.

As a current student of the Sheridan College Furniture program, Richard Chan has a passion for hands-on work. As an emerging artist, he hopes to accumulate as much experience in the industry as possible in order to open his own independent practice as a designer of furniture and functional objects. His current work blends a modern aesthetic with unique visual elements that offer a personal touch to each piece.

Tammy McClennan is interested in how we interact with nature and how value may be assigned to it. Through the fabrication of sculptural objects, she is able to explore nature as form, to consider shapes and textures, while often assigning a new function. Something that is seemingly ‘everyday’ can actually be transformed into objects of value, objects that can be worn and displayed.

The Art Gallery of Burlington is an award-winning gallery located in the heart of Burlington, Ontario. We stage as many as 20 exhibitions a year and are home to an acclaimed collection of Canadian contemporary ceramics and seven fine craft guilds.

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